Chapter 25:

Prelude to a Battle

Buffy stared out the window of the store, a growing look of horror on her face. "I did this, didn't I?" she whispered. "When I said the Nightmare Master could attack us at any time."

Willow laid a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. "I don't think you could have had such an effect if he wasn't already planning this, Buffy."

"We don't know what influence I have here," Buffy insisted. "God, even the most casual comment could kill us all."

"You'll all die screaming, you know," a cold voice said conversationally from behind them.

Buffy whirled around, but the only person there was Spike, looking down casually at his feet. Her temper flared. "That is so not funny, Sp-" He raised his head to look at her, and his eyes were bottomless black liquid.

"Kyuumu are summoned. There is no escaping them," he continued, oblivious to her horror. At once, his face surged into its demonic form and he lunged at Willow, fangs bared.

"No!" Buffy shouted, diving to interpose herself and knock him backwards as Xander pulled Willow to safety. They faced off in the open area between shelves.

"William," she said softly, trying to find again the connection between them. "Come back to me - to us. Don't let him trap you in dreams." His only response was a cold laugh and another attack.

Grim-faced, Buffy countered with a sharp blow to his jaw with the heel of her hand that snapped his head back. She moved in and hooked one leg behind his and pushed him to the floor, where Xander helped her pin him. Whatever had possessed him didn't have his skill in a fight, but sheer strength still made him a danger to them all while it lasted.

"I knew that sending him after you was a bad idea," Xander puffed, breathless as he wrestled to maintain his hold on the struggling vampire. "He's going to get us all killed."

Buffy ignored him and spoke directly to Spike. "William, it's Buffy." She took his contorted face in her hands and looked deeply into his disturbing black eyes for any sign of the man who had fought through so many dreams at her side. "William!"

He only snarled and snapped at her. Regretfully, she let loose with a two-handed blow to the side of his head that knocked him unconscious. She and Xander dragged him up from the floor and into a nearby chair. After some rummaging, Dawn turned up a spool of packing twine, and Buffy and Xander bound Spike firmly.

Is it possible to have a nightmare in a nightmare? Wait . . . Buffy wiped sweat-damp hair out of her face and turned to Tara, who stood comforting Willow. "His amulet! It was broken in one of our dreams," she explained, turning Spike's hand as far as she could in his bonds so the damage could be seen. "Is there anything you can do to fix it?"

Tara nodded her understanding. "That would make him susceptible to the Nightmare Master's control. I'll see if we can find something." She and Willow began to scour the shelves for the necessary materials.

Spike regained consciousness in the chair some time later and began muttering foul imprecations and threats in a low voice.

"Buffy," Dawn pleaded, moving away from where she had been at his side. "Do something."

Not knowing how long it would take Willow and Tara to find supplies to repair the amulet, Buffy had to take a decidedly non-magical approach. She pulled a silk scarf from a display and proceeded to gag Spike securely. "I'm sorry," she murmured after tightening the cloth. "We'll get you back, I promise." She ran her fingers gently over his cheek and into his hair.

"Oh, I don't know," Xander said unkindly from where he had taken a seat on the couch in the middle of the store. "It seems to me that the true Spike's been revealed at last."

Buffy turned an angry glare his way. "Don't you start," she snapped. "Just . . . don't."

Xander threw his hands up in exasperation. "Am I the only one here that can still see 'evil dead guy'?" he asked plaintively. "Even if I have to admit that he's done some good for us, how can you want to be with him? Do you love him?"

"It's . . . it's complicated," Buffy stammered.

"How, exactly?" he demanded. "You love him or you don't, right?"

"He . . . loves me."

"Buffy, he's got no soul. How can he love you? He'll only hurt you in the end."

"Oh, and the people who do love me never hurt me at all," she retorted. "Dawn and I, we hurt each other all the time. Lacking a soul's no prerequisite." She got up from where she knelt at Spike's side and joined Xander on the couch. "Haven't there been times when you and Anya have torn at each other's hearts? As annoying as she can be sometimes, I've heard her voice when she talks about you. There's no one else she'd rather be with. She was a demon for a thousand years, yet you still love her."

Xander fidgeted uncomfortably on the couch. "But she's human now," he insisted. "It's not the same."

"So, it would be better if I were sleeping with someone human, then, like . . . Warren?" she inquired, her expression at odds with the lightness of her tone.

"Yes. No! That's not a fair comparison!" he exclaimed.

"Why not? He fits your criteria. He's human, and alive - so presumably has a soul, right?" She laughed darkly. "He should be just the ticket."

"Buffy, you don't understand," he began.

"No, Xander, it's you that doesn't understand," she interrupted. "All of you. You've been after me to get over it, to just snap out of being sorry that I was dragged out of heaven because you thought it was a good idea at the time. Not one of you has any idea of exactly how hard it is to be here. To wake up every day and face a world that's harsher and colder than where I was. I hurt. I hurt every minute of every day that I'm awake, because of you. Because you loved me."

She turned to look back at Spike, whose dark eyes had never left her as she had moved about the store. "Except that when I'm with Spike, I can forget a little. He can make me enjoy being alive again, for a while, and doesn't resort to cheerleader tactics." A hesitant smile crossed her lips as she looked at him.

"I haven't forgotten what he is or what he's done. Maybe it's just me being selfish, but I've decided to take what I need for a change. I admit that it rates pretty high on the Buffy irony meter that it takes a dead guy to make me feel alive again, yeah - but I never claimed to be normal."

Buffy sighed noisily as she turned back to face Xander, taking his reluctant hands in hers. "I love you guys - I do. I hope you know that - if only because we're all so hard on each other at times."

"We only wanted you to be happy, Buffy," he said softly.

"I know," she replied. "Can you deal with it if I say that right now, what it takes is being with him?"

"If it means you won't go around looking for any more towers to jump from, I guess I can deal." Xander said, drawing her into a warm embrace. "As long as you don't expect me to be crazy about the idea."

"Agreed," she said, returning his hug tightly enough to make his ribs creak.

"Good news, guys," Tara carolled suddenly from the loft. "I think I've found something that will repair Spike's amulet." She made her way quickly down the stairs.

Behind her, Willow began to re-shelve the books they had pulled out in their search. Several of the heavier tomes had fallen over, and she had to reach in with both hands to lift them back into position. Something cold and wet suddenly yielded under her fingers.

Willow's screams and Spike's muffled laughter fought for ascendancy in their ears.

Bellatrix

Buffy leapt to her feet and ran for the stairs, pushing past Tara. A living grey-green tide surged down the stairs and over the edge of the loft to fall with repulsive squashing noises to the floor below. Hundreds - or perhaps even thousands - of frogs carpeted the floor of the loft, squirming wetly against each other, burying Willow under their cold shapes. Buffy began kicking them aside, shovelling them away with both hands trying to reach her friend.

"Ranae delenda sunt!" Willow shouted suddenly, and a wave of magic licked out from her; the frogs shivered into dust and vanished. She looked up, trembling, eyes black with unspent power, to meet Tara's horrified gaze over the edge of the loft. "Tara, I-"

Tara backed away down the stairs, her expression closed. Willow fell back to the floor, pressing her face into her hands. Buffy could only hold her as she rocked and cried.

**********

When Willow had calmed down and dried her tears, the two of them descended again to the lower level into an uncomfortable silence. Buffy looked around at the averted faces, seeing the sidelong glances and how they sidled away when she met their gaze head on. Willow squirmed beside her at this show of mistrust, her eyes so downcast and miserable that Buffy wanted to scream. She found herself in one of those rare moments of clarity when everything became so sharp and detailed it seemed the world would cut her if she moved.

"That's enough," she snapped, drawing everyone's attention. "This guilt-trip attitude is not going to help us get out of here. I'm beginning to think it's going to take a lot more than my imagination to get us out of this situation. If that means I have to ask Willow to handle magic again, and face the consequences later, then that's what I'll ask."

She drew a deep breath and continued. "What good does it do if Willow manages to keep her promise, but we're trapped here?" she asked. "Even if she uses magic, we may not all make it out of here. Or we might. And that's the only situation in which any of this might even come close to being appropriate. Let's save the recriminations until we actually have the luxury, shall we?"

Buffy turned to Tara. "Tara, you said you could repair Spike's amulet? Now would be a good time. Dawn, you and Xander keep helping Will research on the spells we can use to attack or get us out of this mess. Whatever she needs, you get - got it?"

"We got," Xander replied, practically snapping a salute. Dawn didn't even venture a protest.

Channelling my inner drill sergeant, she thought. Works like a charm.

Spike gave Tara no little trouble, writhing so vigorously in his bonds attempting to evade her touch that the chair was rocking dangerously onto two legs. Buffy moved to help her hold him down. After a number of attempts, she finally settled on using her own weight to hold the chair down by straddling his legs. She pinned his arms tightly to his sides by wrapping her arms around him. "This had better not take too long," she warned Tara. "I'm not sure how long I'll be able to hold him."

Some roguish, trouble-making part of her brain found a moment to note that whatever was controlling Spike's mind, his body still responded to her presence as it always had. She could feel him growing hard beneath her and her hips involuntarily rocked in reply. This would be a lot more fun without the audience - and the nightmare possession is a major turn-off, too, she thought, before attempting to banish her frivolous, lascivious self to the base of her brain where it belonged.

"Done," Tara said from behind the chair where she had been working on the amulet on Spike's bound hand. "Call to him, Buffy. See if you can bring him back."

Buffy released her hold around Spike's torso; sliding her hands up to his shoulders so she could lean back and see his face. "William," she crooned gently, "wake up. Come back. It's all been a bad dream and I'm waiting for you right here."

She watched in wonder as the black depths of his eyes slowly resolved back to glacial blue. His stare was fixed at first, until he recognized her and what her body so close was doing to his. His head darted forward as suddenly as a serpent strike and drove his mouth onto hers. In an instant she had curled her fingers tightly in the hair at the back of his neck and was responding passionately. I must be depraved. Wasn't I the one just telling him I wasn't an exhibitionist? That this wasn't the right time? We could be attacked and killed any minute, and all I can think about is how good it feels to--

"Geez, you two," said Dawn, looking up from the pile of books and magical supplies on the table. "Get a room, would you?"

Buffy reluctantly broke away from Spike's lips. "I thought I'd lost you," she whispered, resting her forehead against his, the better to take in those eyes. And I thought I was afraid about what would happen to me in these dreams.

"Maybe you should lose me. I haven't been much more than a liability this trip," he said, clearly angry with himself.

She drew back and stared at him, mock sternly. "Are you trying to make me lose my temper and beat your wimpy English butt for you? You aren't going anywhere, except with me, off to do something monumentally stupid and dangerous. Is that clear?"

His lip curled in a lazy smile at this sign of her affection. "Yes love," he replied.

"Cut him loose," she directed Xander, getting up from Spike's lap.

"About time," Xander muttered under his breath as he set to work with a knife to cut Spike's bonds. "This is about getting us out of here, not fulfilling Spike's fantasies."

"Not to worry, Harris," he mocked. "We crossed this particular one off the list some time ago. Still, it's always nice to revisit the classics, don't you think?" He made no effort to disguise the effects that Buffy's proximity had had on him; in fact, he seemed positively ready to flaunt it.

"Numbers one and two on the list of things I really don't need to know." Xander stood up, dropping the cut sections of twine to the floor. "If you ever do anything to hurt her, I'll come by and stake you myself."

"If I ever step over the line she's set, she'll take care of me herself." Spike replied, standing and rubbing his wrists as though that action would restore his nonexistent circulation. "I'm hers, you understand. Hers to love . . . hers to kill, if it ever has to come to that. She knows that as well as I do." With an insolent toss of his head, Spike dismissed Xander and anything else he might have to say, in favour of moving to the window to stand behind Buffy as she surveyed the dark landscape outside the window. "What's the plan, love?"

He brought one hand to the back of her neck and kneaded firmly at the tight muscles he found there. She arched, cat-like, back into the pressure of his fingers. Starved for touch. Both of us. Only a week apart from her and it's years too long. I swear I'll kill anyone who tries to keep us apart after this, chip or no.

"I have to get us out of here," she said, apropos of nothing. "I'll do anything I can, use anyone I have to, in order to make that happen, and not apologize for it. What kind of a person does that make me?"

"Assuming that's not just a rhetorical question, pet, I'd say it makes you a warrior - and a leader. People will do what you tell them to because they know that by doing so they stand the best chance of surviving." He leaned in closer and nuzzled her neck, making her shiver - and not because of the temperature. "I know I'd follow you anywhere."

"In your case," she retorted, "you're definitely thinking with the wrong head again." She laughed, but the light-hearted moment passed quickly. "Come on, let's see what we can contribute."

"Know what I'd like to contribute," he said on a soft growl, but offered no protest as she drew him back to the group.

"I'm tired of waiting here while he attacks us at his leisure. I say I take the fight to him." Buffy said to the others gathered at the table. "Will, do you remember the spell we used to defeat Adam? The one that linked you, Xander and Giles to me? I think something like that might be what I need to take on the Nightmare Master - because I don't think any one of us could face him alone. See what you can find."

"Gotcha," Willow replied. "A little e pluribus unum coming up."

**********

"It's not really the same spell," Willow explained a short while later. "This one doesn't just pull a few talents from each person, it draws on their actual life force - since you'll probably need everything you can get."

"Then how do I help?" Spike growled, leaning forward threateningly. "Not being on the living team."

Uh, well . . . I can add a twist to it to draw on magical essence too," she added, looking uncertainly at him. "That should do it."

"Better." He subsided back into his chair, placated for the moment.

"Sounds dangerous," Buffy commented. She was disturbed at how easily Willow had slipped on the mantle of dark magic again.

"Oh, it is," Willow confirmed, with an unmistakable undertone of dark glee in her voice. Tara looked away. "If you have to use it, the rest of us are essentially incapacitated. And if you're killed . . . so are we. But if we get into a situation where you actually need to use it, we'd be unlikely to survive without using it. Still interested?"

"Willow . . . Buffy, this is old magic. Wild magic," Tara protested. "Beyond just black and white. It's not something we should be trying."

"We may not have a choice," Buffy replied bluntly, then turned back to Willow. "How long does it take to cast?"

"I can do all the preliminary spellcasting here, and set it up so that all it takes from you is a trigger word. Say half an hour at the outside." Willow got up and rummaged in the collection of manuscripts and papers littering the floor in front of the bookcase, returning with a large, yellowed scroll.

"From this parchment we choose a symbol for everyone to represent how we're linked to Buffy. Then during the ritual itself, we all take turns to draw our symbols onto her to complete our connections."

"Fingerpaint on Buffy. This could be my new favourite game," Spike said with a grin. "Beats the hell out of Parcheesi, anyway."

"Spike-" Buffy began warningly - though to her chagrin she thought her tone sounded less like Spike you pig, and a lot more like oh, yes please than she had intended.

"I know, Slayer. Oink, oink." Made you smile, at least. That'll do.

Willow unrolled the stiff parchment across the table, pinning the corners beneath some of the other books to keep it flat. "Look at these symbols," she directed them, with a wave of one hand.

They all leaned in around the table to get a better view, examining the parchment. Love, death, fear, and friendship were just some of the labels for the strange angular shapes scattered across it - the range was dizzying.

"How do we know what symbol to choose?" Dawn wanted to know.

"When I say the cantrip, you hold out your hand over the parchment. There will be one symbol that attracts you more than any other - and that will be the one for you. And it's possible for more than one person to choose the same symbol," she added in explanation.

"I'll go first, then, shall I?" Spike ventured. Willow nodded, and he extended his hand, fingers splayed, over the brittle surface. His eyes strayed across the symbols inscribed there and he sent fervent wishes to whatever powers would listen. Behind him, Willow murmured a sibilant phrase and he felt his fingers drawn, like iron to a lodestone, down to the paper's surface where they stuck fast.

"Love," Willow read from the page, and set him free. "Traced over her heart, of course."

Spike smiled widely in relief, looking for all the world like a boy who had just taken first prize in some contest at the local fair. He sat himself on the couch to await the others' results.

Xander stepped up next, unwilling to seem reluctant to try anything Spike would. He stretched out his hand; Willow repeated the words and his fingers found his own symbol.

"Loyalty," Willow said. "Palms of both her hands."

He straightened, looking smug and daring Spike to comment.

Tara moved forward before either of them could start something. She hesitated a moment, then, letting her breath sigh out between her lips, put herself into Willow's power.

"Mentor, or guide," Willow read, and frowned. That wasn't what she would have predicted. "It should be drawn on the top of Buffy's head."

Dawn's reading left Willow even more confused. At first her hand didn't seem to respond to the invocation at all. Only after several minutes had passed was it drawn reluctantly down to the paper surface. "Blood," Willow intoned. "Over the heart."

"That's because we're blood relatives," Buffy put in, her voice unnaturally bright. "You know, that good Summers blood . . ."

"You're probably right," Dawn replied with a weak smile, before joining Spike on the couch. He slipped a friendly arm around her shoulder.

"And finally . . . friendship for me," Willow indicated. "Drawn on your forehead. Just give me a few minutes to catch my breath, and we'll perform the spell proper. Make sure you can draw your symbol correctly when the time comes."

The time passed quickly, each of them diligently practicing their chosen symbols while Willow chalked a pentagram on the floor of the store. She directed each of them to a position on one of the points. Before guiding Buffy to her place at the centre of the pentagram, Willow told her the word that would trigger the spell and made sure she could pronounce it properly. Declaring herself satisfied, she took up her own point and raised her arms in supplication to unknown powers.

"Six are we, we desire to be one. Alive . . . and undead . . . we come together to join our life and essence in one vessel, our champion, the Slayer."

One by one they came forward and traced their symbols on Buffy's forehead and hands. Friendship, loyalty, love - Spike took her face in his hands and added a fierce, possessive kiss.

"Out of many, we shall be one. Six spirits shall reside in one flesh, and one mind shall rule them all. We will become forever. We implore thee; hold us now in thy grasp.

"So mote it be." For a moment, golden bands of light linked the five standing at the pentagram's points to Buffy, who stood transfixed at its centre. She flung her head back in a soundless wail as the energy pierced her. The light grew almost intolerably bright to their eyes, and then flared and died as quickly as it had appeared. Willow staggered in place and dropped her arms.

"Is that all?" Dawn was the first to break the silence. "I don't feel any different."

"You won't. Not unless Buffy has to use the spell," Willow explained, between ragged breaths. "I left the triggering word out of the incantation; it isn't complete until she says it."

Buffy stood silent in the pentagram, wrapped in her own thoughts. Spike would have taken her into his arms, but she held up a hand and forestalled him. "Is there a reason to stay here any longer?" she asked at last. "Because I'm really feeling the urge now to go kick some nightmare ass."

"Now that's a woman after my unbeating heart," Spike beamed.

"The tower seems to be the power locus here," Tara ventured. "I expect that any portal or passage back to the conscious world will be there."

"Then we're heading for that tower," Buffy declared. "Spike and I will take point. Willow, you and Tara will flank us, to take out anything that comes at us from the sides or tries a magical attack. Xander-"

"I know," he sighed. "Dawn and I stay here, because we don't have any superhero fighting skills or magical powers."

"No. We leave no one behind. You're with Dawn behind us." She took his hands. "I need you to protect her. If anything gets past us, you're my last hope. I know I can count on you."

"Forever," he breathed, overwhelmed by her trust.

"Good. Take whatever weapons you know how to use, we're not staying a minute longer in this place."

Revelations Book 1

Xander clanked as he walked; he had strung so many knives and hand axes from his belt that his pants threatened to fall down. Spike's axe looked as though it might topple him at any moment, but he clung to it with a covetous grin. Buffy had taken the usual complement of stakes, figuring that her nightmares usually involved vampires, but had added a two handed sword in a sheath on her back and a couple of throwing knives for non-vampire threats. Even Dawn got in on the action with a smaller sword than her sister's, though she now looked as though she regretted choosing something so heavy. Tara and Willow had eschewed any physical weapons in favour of their more formidable mental ones. Together they must have made quite an impressive display.

They had been travelling into the withered hills for what seemed like hours - but might have been only minutes, watches not being among the items they had imagined for themselves in this dream. They were feeling as though they were more in danger from boredom than from the Nightmare Master's minions, when Spike came to an abrupt halt. "Bloody hell," he hissed. "That's not a tower, it's a damn tree."

Buffy squinted into the gloom. "How can you be sure?" she asked. "I can't make out anything at this distance."

"Seeing in near darkness is just another of my many skills, love. I told you that you didn't appreciate me," he said with a grin entirely too cheerful for someone trapped in a nightmare world.

"How could a tree be that big?" she wondered, ignoring his dig at her.

"It actually makes more sense. That it's a tree, I mean," Tara said, flushing when all their faces turned her way in curiosity. "Humans have been having nightmares for tens of thousands of years, long before we were building structures."

"We dream too," Spike interjected. "We demons. And we've been around even longer, in one form or another."

Tara nodded acknowledgement. "So there's no reason to limit it to human structures, even."

"You know, it sounds an awful lot like the Norse legend of the world tree Yggdrasil," Willow added. "It passed through and supported all the worlds of creation. It's part of one of the oldest of genesis stories. Maybe the early Vikings saw the tree in their dreams."

"A tree appears in a number of religions," Tara continued. "The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in Eden, or the Bo tree under which Prince Siddhartha received his revelations. It's a powerful symbol - of an almost primeval magic."

Xander found himself trading an eye-rolling glance with Spike and Dawn, who clearly shared the sentiment that there could, in fact, be worse torments than never ending nightmares.

Uncertainty flickered momentarily across Buffy's features. "If the Nightmare Master is that old and powerful, then how can just six of us defeat him?"

"The Slayer magic is nearly as old," Spike said suddenly, infuriated with Tara and Willow for provoking Buffy's hesitation.

"I don't have any magic," she said, looking to him in confusion.

"A Slayer doesn't have magic," he clarified, reining in his temper for her sake. "She is magic - as old as humanity is, at least. There's all the power you'll need."

"Where did you learn so much about Slayers, Spike?" Xander asked sarcastically, stung that Spike should so easily switch sides to join the scholars. "Did you get hold of a Slayer handbook somehow?"

"Killed two of them, didn't I?" Spike retorted.

"And this should make us trust you?" Xander was just as quick with his own rejoinder.

"It should make you believe me. Know your enemy, yeh? Uh, former enemy," he amended, with an apologetic glance aside at Buffy. She nodded impatiently, acknowledging that she recognized the past - and still wanted him in her present. He restrained himself from indulging in the flights of poetic fancy this encouraged. Get on with it, right. He focussed his next words only on her.

"Legend has it that the first Slayer was a powerful demon, called by the shadowmen and born into the body of a girl. They wanted her to be able to protect the tribes from the nasties like yours truly that would otherwise have killed them all." For an instant, his eyes glowed yellow and sharp teeth gleamed in his grin. "Those blokes were the first watchers. They chose a girl so as to have some hopes of controlling the demon, I figure, and there's only supposed to be one called at a time because they're so bloody chaotic and dangerous. Wild magic, like you said," he nodded to Willow and Tara, who were listening raptly. Buffy, strangely, didn't seem upset at the idea that there was a demonic basis to her powers. You always wondered why I said we two belong together. Now you know.

"I'm not a demon," Buffy protested mildly. Concerns about what she might or might not be were pushed aside by the job at hand, and she was impatient to continue.

"No love, you're as human as the rest of them," he said, gesturing around with the head of his axe. "But that's not all you are. And since you've been brought back, you know you've changed somehow."

"I explained that to her," Tara said firmly. "It's a side effect of the resurrection spell, nothing more. Some minor changes on a cellular level that fool your chip."

Spike sneered at the suggestion. "Oh, right. Like you really believe that's all it is. Doesn't that seem a little simplistic to you? When I died, I came back a vampire. Death's not a minor change."

Buffy stared into the distance, letting the conversation flow around her. A few weeks ago, she had torn into Spike for suggesting anything of the sort. Now she was rapt with a new sense of purpose that settled serenity over her like a familiar and well-loved comforter. If that was coming from changes when she had died and was reborn - again - then she for one would welcome it, whatever the source.

She watched Spike and Tara arguing and nearly laughed when Spike pinched at the bridge of his nose with his fingers in frustration. He reminds me of Giles when he does that, the way he used to push his glasses up. Don't think Spike would appreciate the comparison, though.

"I believe there's something to both of your ideas, Spike," she cut them off before Willow joined the fray and things degenerated into a shouting match. "It could explain a lot about what I can do, and why I seem to be stronger now than ever. But this isn't the time for Slayer self-discovery - we need to get moving again. If I can't win, I can at least go down trying."

She looked around the group and her face contracted in a puzzled frown. "Where's Dawn?"

**********

Dawn kicked idly at the clumps of dusty sod at the base of one of the many hillocks. She wasn't at all surprised that her absence hadn't been noticed yet; Willow and Tara could ignore a minor natural disaster when they started in on discussions of the tedious minutiae of magic, and Xander was all wrapped up in anger and envy at Spike - nothing new there. And of course, Spike and Buffy - she was amazed that they were still able to focus on anything besides each other right now. Still, she figured it was about damn time that Buffy admitted she was in love with Spike. Dawn found him to be a vast improvement over Buffy's last vampire boyfriend. Angel had always looked at her with the exact same suspicious expression that Buffy used when she smelt to see if a carton of milk had gone bad. Not really the look for inspiring affection.

A rough scraping sound made her look up from her introspection to see a female figure moving towards her - Tara, sent to retrieve the prodigal, she assumed.

"Dawn, honey?" the woman asked - not Tara, Dawn realized with a shudder. Her blood began to do a fair imitation of ice water, complete with good-sized ice cubes.

"M-Mommy?" she whimpered.

**********

"I can't believe she'd just walk off," Buffy was saying. "What was she thinking? She should know better than this by now."

Spike shrugged casually. "She probably just wanted to get away from the old folks' rambling again," he volunteered.

"You are not allowed to take her side in this, Spike," Buffy said warningly.

"Note to self for future reference - fright makes you testy."

"Get stuffed," she replied. "This isn't funny."

"See?" He fixed her with a thousand-watt grin. "Don't worry pet, we'll find her. She can't have gone far."

A scream rent the dank air, wiping the smile instantly from his face, and they all set off at a run towards the source.

**********

"Get away from me. You can't be real." Dawn gritted her teeth and lifted her sword in both hands.

"But I am real, honey. You wanted me to come back, and here I am." Not-Joyce advanced on her slowly. "You know," she winked conspiratorially, " I wasn't really dead when you buried me. You knew, but you let them do it anyway. I dug myself out when I heard you calling me." And she smiled, revealing tumbled-gravestone teeth clotted with dark soil.

Dawn screamed.

"I'll stay with you always, honey."

Buffy came pelting around from behind a concealing hill followed closely by Spike. She stopped so suddenly on seeing her mother's form that only his inhuman reflexes kept him from crashing into her. The colour drained from her face and she swayed unsteadily. "Mom? No-"

"She's not real!" Dawn yelled, but Buffy still couldn't force her body to move.

Spike pushed past her to confront not-Joyce himself, lifting his axe. She turned to him with a pleasant, perfectly ordinary smile, and said "Why Spike! How nice to see you again. Did you manage to work things out with your girlfriend?"

Agony arced a hot silver wire between his temples, and he staggered back, clutching his head. "Bloody hell," he gasped. "I know she's not real." Another attempt netted him the same result and he howled. "Sodding chip! Can't tell a real human from a dream one? Fucking waste of taxpayer money . . ."

"Protect Dawn," Buffy shouted, and advanced. He had no choice but to fall back and obey.

Buffy confronted her mother's apparition. "You're not our mother. You're only another of the Nightmare Master's creations, and I won't let you hurt my sister."

Not-Joyce's voice was hard when she answered. "You're already hurting her yourself. Why else would she be stealing and skipping school, if it weren't because of your bad influence? Making her eat leftovers from your job instead of proper meals, staying out to all hours - and sleeping with a vampire. No wonder she's been traumatized-"

Buffy's eyes widened in shock. "Shut up!" she stammered.

"Don't you dare speak to me in that tone, young lady." Not-Joyce's attention was caught by Willow, Tara and Xander coming, out of breath, around the hills. "And then you expose her to sick, lesbian relationships in her own home."

Willow's jaw dropped and she froze in place. "Mrs. Summers?" she sputtered, unable to comprehend what she was seeing and hearing. Tara's face went brick red at not-Joyce's comments, and she ducked her head.

"Buffy, make her stop!" Dawn shrieked from where she huddled behind Spike.

"Xander knows what's right, don't you dear?" Not-Joyce went on, unheeding. "Can I get you a cold drink, or would you prefer something . . . hot?" Her hips swayed suggestively towards him, and he recoiled, horror-struck.

"No!" Buffy screamed, breaking free of her paralysis at last. She lunged forward, snatching her sword from her back. Spike barely had time to grab Dawn by the scruff of the neck and press her face to his chest before Buffy's vicious blow struck not-Joyce's head from her shoulders. The body exploded instantly into a cloud of black insects that flew and scuttled and squirmed away in all directions until there was no sign that anything or anyone had ever been standing there.

Buffy slowly sheathed her sword and stood with her head down, breathing deliberately to hold off her incipient hysteria. When she was finally back in control of herself she turned to face the others, but her eyes were still suspiciously bright and her face flushed in anger at and fear for her sister. Her nerves still sang with the adrenalin of the encounter. "No one goes off alone. Do I have to repeat myself for anyone here?"

"Let it go, Slayer. The girl's had a hard lesson already. Right, pet?" Dawn clutched more tightly to Spike's lapels and sniffed loudly, then nodded, her head bobbing against his chest. "Now Bit, if you get my coat all over snot, you know I'll be sending you the cleaning bill." She thumped his chest in indignation with one hand, hard, and he laughed. "That's my Niblet."

He tightened his hold at the back of her neck and bent to kiss the top of her dark head. God, the scent of her is so much like Buffy - but like a child. It lacked only the twin dark undertones of lust and power that marked his lover. He knew now he would walk into fire or sunlight willingly for either one of them; they both held his heart in their hands - only Dawn did so completely innocent of the power she had over him.

He wanted nothing more than to draw Buffy close and offer her the same solace he was giving Dawn. But he could almost see her drawing the mantle of her calling more tightly about her for strength, and knew that the Slayer would accept no comfort from such as him right now. Tara slipped one arm about her shoulders in wordless sympathy.

Revelations Book 2

When they had recovered some of their equilibrium, the group set out again for the Tree - at some point, it had acquired proper noun status in all their minds. Buffy wasn't sure whether it was simply a trick of the dim, watery light, but it seemed to have grown much closer in the time they had been stopped.

After some time, the low hills began to level out as they pressed on, giving way to a wind-scoured plain. Buffy's only reaction was thanks that it would at least make it easier to see anything advancing on them. They travelled in silence; no one wanted to discuss the encounter with the apparition of Joyce.

Spike walked beside her, but much of his normal swaggering confidence was gone from his step. "Slayer," he rumbled deep in his chest, so low that she almost couldn't hear him.

When he stops calling me love, or pet, there's trouble. She waited, but he didn't seem inclined to continue. "What's bothering you?" she prompted. "If there's something I should know . . ."

He wouldn't meet her eyes, and his words sounded like they were being pried out of him by various unpleasant instruments of torture. "I'll not be much good to you here if all he has to do is send in attackers that seem human."

"We'll deal with that if or when it happens," she said. "Otherwise, you stay with me." Can't you tell how much I depend on you?

His eyes blazed up; twin fires of devotion.

**********

The monotony of their surroundings was becoming so oppressive that Buffy was almost relieved when Spike pointed out two objects advancing towards them in the distance.

"Any idea what they are?" He shook his head.

"I see them," Willow said, and murmured, "video." Her eyes lost focus as she directed her magical sight far ahead of the group. "It looks like a couple of mountain lions, only . . . they're on fire."

"Flaming cat demons?" Xander's voice was incredulous. "Who the hell's been having nightmares about flammable felines?" No one admitted to being the source of the latest threat.

"I don't think they're from anyone's nightmare. I think we've left the land of our nightmares and are getting close to the centre of the Nightmare Master's power," Tara said. "These could be some of his own defences, rather than something from our subconscious."

"Okay, but if we run into a giant marshmallow man, I'm holding you responsible." Xander looked around into uncomprehending faces. "What? Am I the only one here who has the classic movie cable channel?"

"Just get ready," Buffy instructed, "but do nothing until I give the word. Let's see what he's sending us this time."

The two large cats came leisurely into view, twining sinuously about each other as they advance. Pale blue eldritch flames wreathed their bodies, but didn't seem to harm or consume them. As they approached, Buffy stood with the tip of her sword at her feet and rested her hands on the crosspiece of the hilt in front of her. Though outwardly she appeared calm, Spike could read the lines of tension and anticipation in how she held herself.

The cats made no immediate move to attack, but split apart to encircle the group on opposite paths. Buffy's eyes directed Spike to shift, and they matched this move, weapons ready, circling the four others now clustered together between them.

"Buffy, I can-" Willow began, but Buffy cut her off with a sharp gesture over her shoulder.

"Not yet!"

"Dead man," said the cat moving in front of Spike. Its voice was a thousand glass chimes.

"That a threat, or just an observation?" he replied coolly. It didn't reply, but continued circling.

"Wildfire," said the other - strong winds in a vast Aeolian harp - looking at Willow.

"Ocean." The first again, now peering around Spike at Tara, though he tried to keep himself between them, his axe raised.

"Man, most mortal." At Xander. The two crossed again outside the circle. Dawn gasped involuntarily, knowing she'd draw their attention next.

They both turned to face her. "We know you, Key to the Great Door, Opener of the Way. Why do you fear us? Among all these, you have a place here."

"No," she whispered, and recoiled.

Buffy moved quickly to interpose herself. "You leave her alone and deal with me," she demanded.

The cats ignored her and spoke again to each other. "What of the one who guards them with the sword I do not like at all?"

"She doesn't know what she is or what she will become. She will die as easily as the others." Around them a ring of pale flames rose, and more cat-forms began to appear in the fire.

"Now! Before the new ones are completely formed!" Buffy shouted, lunging forward and attempting to spit one of the two original cats on her sword. It danced back out of her reach.

"Finally! Something I can kill!" Spike rejoiced.

"Then what are you waiting for?" Buffy admonished him as she recovered for a second strike.

Spike waded into the fray with glee, his face split in a wide, tongue-wagging grin. She looked at the laughing face of her demon lover and felt a thrill of passion - and the tiniest hint of fear - seeing the love, lust and chaos that he leashed and unleashed solely at her word. His guilt-free joy in the pandemonium of battle called strongly to some deep place in her soul.

Bold laughter welled up inside her and she let it spill out as she joined him in the battle. They fought side-by-side and back-to-back as though they had been partners for years, each knowing what the other's next move would be even before it was made. Around them, Willow rained destruction from the skies upon their foes, pulling lightning from the skies as easily as a woman might pull her laundry from the line. Tara's magic was less flamboyant but no less effective, causing the earth to open and swallow enemies whole.

The ground should have been littered with the split bodies that Buffy and Spike left in their wake, but wherever one of the great beasts was felled, its body vanished and the flames spread out to spring up somewhere else. Willow and Tara began to falter, stumbling back against each other. More than once, Xander had to strike at a feline form that had slipped past the other defenders, though not one approached Dawn.

Buffy found her strength flagging and the enemy not reduced in number. Her clothes were tattered and her flesh scored in half a dozen places where the claws of a cat had managed to pierce her defences. Spike didn't look much better, but had at least the advantage of no circulation to drive the blood from his wounds. She lunged raggedly once more, knowing that even with her Slayer strength she'd soon have nothing left to draw upon.

But this time, instead of vanishing at the first touch of her sword, the cat in front of her screamed and died, falling to the ground and staying there. The flames surrounding it faded, as did half of the remaining attackers. "Spike! Willow! Find and kill the other one of the original two - the others should disappear!"

"How the hell," Spike panted between strokes, "do you suggest I do that, pet?" He redoubled his efforts, striking out wildly around him with his axe.

"Just don't stop attacking! Willow!" she shouted. "Is there something you can do to hit all of them at once? I can't tell them apart."

Willow spun around; a dervish in peasant skirt and granny boots. A concussive wave of enchantment swept out from her, hammering the air and rattling their bones to the marrow. It passed them by, held harmless in its power, but shivered apart the demon cats all around them until only the two remained, shattered and spent on the ground. Willow, too, collapsed; blood flowed brightly from her nose, and Tara clutched her desperately to her breast.

Spike staggered back to the centre of their ragged circle and took in the two witches huddled together on the ground. "That was a bit of all right then, Red," he offered. "Didn't know you still had that much in you, after the linking spell and all."

"Sometimes I even surprise myself," she murmured, swiping at her streaming nose with the back of one hand and sniffing strongly to staunch the flow. But she didn't try to get up from where Tara was holding her.

The crimson stain held Spike's attention a moment longer than curiosity would justify; he looked up to see Buffy watching him with a troubled gaze. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. Letting the others tend to Willow, they moved apart from the group.

He brought one hand to her waist to draw her closer, encouraged when she didn't pull away. "Vampire, love," he sighed, resigned to her censure. "Won't pretend to be something I'm not, or better than I am."

Buffy rested her head briefly on his shoulder, her face turned away. "I don't think you should. It's just . . . you make all of this . . ." an eloquent wave of her hand took in the two of them and their situation, "seem so reasonable, despite nightmares and enigmatic messages from flamey cat-things. Then seeing that . . . takes me by surprise. I suppose it shouldn't." She raised her eyes to him again and drank him in. "But you've changed so much else."

"It's all within the limits of what I am, love. You shouldn't have to pretend to be what you're not either. I saw your face when you were fighting; you were glorious. Your whole body and soul come alive when you fight. You belong in charge of us. Of me.

"Command." His fingers touched her lips, then spread over his heart. "Obey. If I could have the chip out tomorrow, love, I'd still be sworn off of the tasty people snacks now - because you wouldn't like it." He laughed darkly. "Sounds utterly pathetic, but it's how I'm made - in half a dozen ways that have nothing to do with being a vampire.

"Don't punish yourself by denying what you are. Even if you weren't a Slayer, life's too short to not to grab it by the balls and have some fun with it."

"Was that fun? You would think so." Was that a laugh from her, or just a soft, hiccoughing sigh? "Yeah. It's crazy to think this way, with all of our lives at risk, but . . . it was fun." Where do I draw the line? Where do depressingly-responsible-Buffy and enjoying-life-Buffy meet? I'll be years sorting that out. But for now . . .

She looked up at him with a sly smile. "And I suppose you think you're part of the fun I should be having?"

In response he turned them so his back was to the others and to bring her hand down to cup the bulge at the front of his jeans. Her experimental squeeze there was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath. Oh. I can make him breathe.

She leaned into him, lips parted, and he brought his mouth down to hers. His lips had barely grazed her own when Xander's shout interrupted them.

"Oh, bugger this," he said with feeling, releasing her instantly to return to the others.

The bodies of the two cat demons still lay where they had been slain, but the fires around them had been rekindled. Their windsong voices pierced the group with an icy sliver of fear.

"The master comes."

Revelations Book 3

The bodies of the cat demons wavered in the flames and grew insubstantial. Between them there was a shivering in the air as something else began to form. It was nothing they could see when they looked at it directly; it hovered at the edge of their awareness - a movement that could only be seen from the corner of the eye.

Moving as one, Buffy and Spike stepped forward to confront this apparition when they found themselves immobilized, wrapped in invisible bonds. Behind them, the cries from the others testified to their imprisonment as well. The Nightmare Master - for whom else could it have been? - moved between them slowly, a vaguely man-shaped glitter in the air.

Spike's skin crawled at this inspection. Vampire senses insisted there was nothing there, only a disturbance of the light, but a cold, sibilant voice poured venom into his ears, stirring the hairs at the back of his neck.

"You dream in blood, bound one. Would you be free?" A small gesture, and the Nightmare Master's indistinct hand suddenly held a minute shiny bit of plastic, metal and wire. "Such a tiny thing, so easily dealt with." His voice was as smug and smoothly reasonable as that of any of the pompous schoolmasters who had ever beaten young William's knuckles bloody for his failure to achieve.

Spike was reduced to stammering, as though memory alone had the power to carry him back into that callow boy. "You can't... You didn't . . ."

"You doubt my power, here at the heart of my realm? The only price is that you turn away. Let me have the girl and her dreams, and you will be free."

The Nightmare Master paused a moment and awaited his reply. The moment became an eternity as a wicked smile curled his lip. Fighting, killing again. Living flesh between my teeth and hot blood in my throat. No more toadying to the insipid Scoobies - oh, to tear that superior grin from Harris's face and leave a bloody hole! Nothing to stop me now, no restraints. The smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. No Buffy. She'd have to stake me; couldn't let me live. My heart's desire, and all I have to give up is my heart? Spike didn't trust himself to speak, fearing that any words of his would be twisted against him, to trap Buffy and kill them all.

"Why do you hesitate? What keeps you leashed?"

"She does." A nod at Buffy.

"What hold could she have on you? You are a convenience to her, nothing more."

Memories of her seared his mind. Self-loathing in her eyes as she struggled back into her clothing. "You're just... convenient." Contempt flaring, as she looked down at him in the dank alley. "It would never be you, Spike. You're beneath me." Words she had tossed out without consideration, on a creature she thought it beneath her to notice. Wasn't it always that way? He was just another one of the beasts that she would have to put down. As if in response to her view of him, an animal rage began to burn within him, driving a desperate need to strike at and kill the source of his pain.

She scorned him, even as he held her prisoner. "The only chance you had with me was when I was unconscious." Mocking his claims that he could change for her. "You're not a man. You're a thing. An evil, disgusting thing." Revulsion at what they had done and the thought that her friends might ever know. "I swear to god, if you tell anyone about last night, I will kill you." Pummelling him as he lay helpless under her. "You don't... have a soul! There is nothing good or clean in you. You are dead inside! You can't feel anything real! I could never... be your girl! He snarled and gave himself over to the demon inside, ready to lunge at her throat the instant he was freed.

Dawn taunting him for his pathetic battered box of chocolates he had intended for Buffy's birthday. "You know she'd never touch anything from you anyway." Niblet... Dawn...

Dawn loves me. Buffy... He turned his eyes her way.

Buffy's eyes were wide with fear where she was held, but now he could see it was fear for him, not fear of him. He stopped, and was a man once more, and suddenly free of his bonds. There was a long silence then, as he glanced at her and then down at the ground. You hold my heart in your hands, and my world in your eyes. Your willing slave, I said. I'll not betray you. "No thanks, mate," he managed at last. "You'll have to dust me before I let you get to her."

"You will die your final death here at last, then." A negligent wave, and the chip vanished from his hand, no doubt to nestle snugly once again in Spike's brain.

"Get in line, you tosser." Spike jerked one thumb over to where Xander stood. "Harris over there has wanted to do me in for years. You don't want to brown off the boy by stealing his thunder." Under cover of his words, he manoeuvred himself to strike, but was caught and held again as easily as he himself could have caught a mere mortal, once. He could only watch helplessly as the Nightmare Master turned to where Buffy was imprisoned.

"Your consort is a traitor to his own kind, Warrior of the People. What assurance do you have that he will not turn against you as well?"

How betrayed she felt, finding out that he had been with Dawn at the Magic Box when Dawn had discovered she was the Key. She had confronted him at his crypt. "Oh, yeah, here it comes. Something goes wrong in your life, blame Spike... Maybe if you had been more honest with her in the first place, you wouldn't be trying to make yourself feel better with a round of Kick The Spike." She frowned. His remembered voice was full of blunt anger, not deception.

He almost died for her. He would die for me. He may still be a monster, but he's my monster now. I accepted that responsibility when I admitted that he could love me.

Buffy took a deep breath to steady her voice before replying. "He loves me and protects me and mine, and I - I've given him my trust." And, I think, my heart. "Nothing you can say will make me take that away from him. You can't make me believe that he'll betray me." She looked over at him, as though her eyes could convey what mere words were inadequate for. He would have closed his own at this balm to his heart, but couldn't bear the thought of not seeing her, even for a moment.

A chill grew in the air between them, and Spike began to fear they had betrayed one another in their glance. Oh love. We really have to do something about our eyes.

"So if I take this one..."

Yes, take me! Spike wanted to shout. I've got three lifetimes of nightmares you can have. Let her go! But not a word escaped him, held securely in the Nightmare Master's thrall.

"No!" Buffy shouted. "I'll stay - if you let the others go. I won't fight you any more. You can have all the nightmares you want out of me, just set them free."

A sepulchral laugh echoed around them. "You are in no position to bargain. Why should I accept your offer, when I can have every one of you?" His shadowy form began to fade. "It is only a matter of time, after all..."

Freed without warning from his hold as he vanished, the six of them collapsed to the ground. Buffy was the first back to her feet, and she could only stand looking around her, her eyes wide.

"We are so not in Kansas anymore," Xander murmured where he lay.

They found themselves at the base of the Tree, among tangled roots bigger than even the largest of Sunnydale's extensive subterranean tunnels. The Tree itself loomed vastly overhead and to either side of them, so wide that the gnarled black bark seemed to stretch off like a wall without limit in both directions.

The ground suddenly erupted underneath them into thousands of grasping, seeking ebony tendrils twisting upward - a fairy-tale wall of thorns on acid. Before they could even think to react, the choked growth had cut them off from each other.

"Dawn! Spike!" Buffy hacked at the prisoning branches in desperation, severing twigs and rootlets that showered her with thick, dark sap that smelt of corruption and decay. As soon as she had cleared a small opening in the rabid growth, new strands wove their way in to fill the gaps. More encroached on her until she barely had room to turn. She began to panic as the space about her grew smaller and smaller.

Decayed flesh and rotting fabric, an oppressive musty smell of soil. Tickling black beetles and blind white worms wound their way over her body. Utter darkness, and no way to escape...

**********

Xander tore in panic at the encircling growth, but the unnatural vegetation was icy cold and ripped frozen strips of flesh from his hands, leaving them scored and striped. He thought he could hear Dawn's screams, but they grew fainter as though she were receding rapidly into the distance.

"Dawn! Buffy!" Snatching a hand axe from his belt, Xander tried hacking at the black branches instead. The axe rebounded, leaving no mark or sign that he had even connected. He kept at it until his arms couldn't bear to lift the axe again, and then fell to his knees nearly weeping in frustration.

"Haven't seen you cry like that since Mitch Waters stole your G.I. Joes in sixth grade," commented a sardonic voice behind him. Xander spun on one knee and, losing his balance, fell back onto his ass. "But I guess nothing much has changed."

A dark figure seemed to melt easily through the dense vegetation. Xander started, and hitched back involuntarily across the ground.

"Jesse?"

**********

"You disgust me!" Tara's voice rang in the small clearing and pierced Willow's heart. "Wallowing in black magics until your very soul is filthy with them, using them on me - on me! And you expect me to just take you back? I don't ever want to see you again."

"Tara, baby," Willow pleaded. "It's not like that." But Tara was gone, disappearing into the twisted foliage.

Anguish and fury boiled up inside the witch. "How dare you judge me? You're just jealous that I have more power than you do, that I dare to go beyond petty little firefly spells into something really potent. I'll show you. I'll make you love me."

Willow gathered her power together, ready to fling it at the world and remake it into a place more to her liking, a place with no sharp edges to tear at her heart. She cast the net of magic, only to feel - nothing. She stumbled and felt as off balance inside as though she had missed the bottom step of a staircase. Desperate, she mumbled a phrase to sharpen her concentration and tried again, but still nothing changed. That place inside her, the place that had always glowed with the promise of power, felt as hollow and aching as the socket left by a missing tooth. Not even the smallest pebble would lift from the earth at her command, and Willow fell to the ground, weeping.

**********

"It's past time you came home with us, Tara." She whirled to see her father watching her suspiciously.

"No! I can't! They need my help to get us all out of here," she insisted.

"You wouldn't even be here if you hadn't been meddling in things better left alone," Mr McClay replied. "Now stop this foolishness and come along. You belong with your family."

"I belong with Willow. I love her, and she loves me."

"No one could possibly love a monster like you. You know what you really are inside. Your so-called friends would never understand why you've been lying to them all along." She felt herself dwindle, compress and distort into a misshapen parody of human form. Ugliness of body to match the ugliness of my mind...

**********

She lay on the ground in front of him, her life spent, and the marks of his own teeth plain and raw on the smooth column of her throat. He fell to his knees and took her lifeless body into his arms, sobbing and rocking helplessly.

**********

Dawn screamed as everyone around her vanished, swallowed up in the fantastic black vegetation suckering out from the Tree. Don't leave me alone!

In desperation, she began pulling at the growths nearest to her. At her touch, branches withered and died. Leaves collected at her feet, dry as mummy wrappings and whispering incomprehensibly as her movements disturbed them.

Heartened by this small progress, Dawn continued to tear at the branches. Somewhere ahead of her she knew she would find Buffy, if she could only rip away enough.

**********

"Xandman. You never did have the guts to deal with me yourself, did you?" Jesse's feral eyes and fangs gleamed in the darkness. "You always had to find someone bigger and stronger to tag along with, like that stupid bitch of a Slayer, so you could feel powerful." He advanced slowly. "Well now it's just you and me, old pal."

Xander struggled to his feet and backed away until he was up against a wall of the chill branches. He felt desperately among his weapons for a stake, but found none.

"What's the matter? No clever quips? No smart-ass comments? I'm glad I was turned, Xander, because otherwise I'd have ended up just like you, a pathetic-" His eyes widened in surprise, just before he vanished.

Sadly, Xander surveyed the dust sifting downward in the still air. "A lot has changed in the past five years, Jesse." He dropped the branch he had broken from the growth behind him, heedless of the pain of the raw flesh of his palms. Around him the branches seemed to falter in their growth, then withered and fell away. He pushed his way through them now without difficulty

**********

Dawn gave a small shriek as Xander suddenly appeared before her through a hole in the trees. He caught her up around the waist and spun her around. "Am I ever glad to see you!"

"Mutual," she squeaked. He put her down so she could catch her breath.

"Where are the others?" he asked.

"Still trapped in there somewhere, I assume," Dawn replied, waving one hand at the wall of thorny branches. "I was trying to get through. When I touch them, they... die," she confessed uncertainly, torn between pride that she wasn't the weakest member of the group, and dread at what might be the source of her power.

"Then you should keep right on touching them," Xander said, forcing his mind away from contemplating the source of Dawn's power over one of the Nightmare Master's creations. He tried to be properly grateful that something was going their way at last, but feared what it meant.

Dawn turned back to the task of making her way through the trees. He took up a position behind her, to clear away the dead branches as quickly as she could destroy them. They had tunnelled about half a dozen feet when Buffy's hand thrust blindly out at them from between the branches. They clutched at her urgently, and pulled on her hand and then her arm until she stumbled through the last of the vegetation and into their desperate hold.

Her face bore the same haunted, empty stare that it had on the day she had first been returned from the grave. Dawn took her sister's sap-streaked face between her hands. "Buffy. You're back. It was only another nightmare." They crumpled together to the ground and Dawn cradled Buffy against her, stroking her hair and murmuring soothing nonsense syllables to calm her as she would a small child. Xander stood guard over them, axe at the ready, but the plants remained quiescent about them.

Awareness grew slowly in Buffy's eyes and her face hardened. She patted Dawn's cheek tenderly, and then took Xander's proffered hand to lever herself up from the ground. "I swear, that bastard's going to pay for making me relive that particular nightmare again." She looked around them. "The others?"

"Still trapped," Xander replied.

"How did you get free?" Dawn laid one hand on a branch in wordless demonstration, and Buffy's brows rose. "Impressive. Let's not waste any more time, then. The last time I saw Spike, he was standing somewhere over in that direction." Dawn oriented herself as her sister had indicated, and they set off again.

She couldn't properly judge the passage of time in the nightmare world, but Dawn thought it couldn't have been more than ten minutes or so when she saw a flash of peroxide-white hair through the dark branches. She pushed into a clearing and found Spike on his knees with his face in his hands. "Spike?" she asked anxiously. It was going to take a very long time to reassemble the group if everyone had to be rescued from the clutches of some personal nightmare.

He didn't even look up at her voice, but only kept on rocking. "She's gone, Bit. She's dead and I killed her." His voice trembled with anguish and self-loathing.

Buffy stepped forward so he would see her. "Spike. William. I'm right here," she said, with more patience than Dawn had thought her sister capable of. "I'm not dead, and you didn't kill me. Come back."

Spike looked up, comprehension growing slowly in his eyes until he flung his arms around her waist. He clung to her with what to anyone else would have been bonecrushing force, pressing his face into her shirt. She stroked one hand softly through his dishevelled hair and waited for his calm to return

"Why do you keep calling him that?" Xander asked, peevishly. "William's the guy the demon killed a hundred years ago."

"That's something between us, Xander," she said gently, as Spike got to his feet again.

"She can call me whatever she bloody well pleases, lackwit," Spike said harshly, stung that his Achilles' heel had been so openly demonstrated.

"Spike," Buffy said warningly. "And Xander," she added, turning to take him in with a sharp glance. "We don't have time for the testosterone games today. Let it go."

Spike turned back to Buffy and took her hands in his. "Any name of mine, love, I know will be safe in your mouth."

She spared a little smile and a nod at this sign of his trust. "Enough talking. Tara and Willow are still trapped." She turned to address her sister. "Dawn, keep clearing away the branches. We'll be right behind you."

**********

When they finally found them, neither Willow nor Tara were willing to discuss their nightmares, but only lingered close together, holding hands disconsolately. If their nightmares were as unpleasant as mine, Buffy thought, I don't blame them for wanting to stay near each other. But we can't afford to linger in self-pity, either.

Buffy gathered everyone around her. "We have to stay close together," she advised. "We can't risk being separated into individual nightmares again. Next time there may not be someone who can bring us out. Clearly we've come to the limit of the amulets' power to protect us."

"So what can we do now?" Xander wanted to know.

"I say we take the attack to him," Buffy replied, "I'm tired of us having to be the ones who are always on the receiving end. Willow, Tara - I need a way to find out what's up there and then get us into the Tree." She hoped giving them a task to focus on would help them to shake off the persistent pall of the nightmare wood. Even Spike hadn't been able to leave behind its effects yet; he kept stealing touches as if to assure himself she was really there, fingers grazing her hair, her shoulder, her hip. Finally she just took his hand and held it tightly.

Tara and Willow moved apart from the others, deep in conversation and gesturing at the Tree. After some discussion, they withdrew a vial of sand from Tara's bag and began laying out symbols on the uneven ground.

Buffy used her free hand to draw Dawn close, stroked her hair back from her forehead, and smiled. "You did good today, Dawn. We wouldn't have made it this last part of the way without you." Dawn ducked her head and smiled in return - a real smile, not the strained grimace she'd been patronizing her sister with for months.

"Have to get big sis to teach you a few moves now, right Niblet?" Spike teased, chucking Dawn under the chin with a move that Buffy privately thought was much too babyish for her. But Dawn just blushed and shrugged, seemingly enjoying his attention. Xander gagged discreetly, but they all tacitly agreed to ignore him.

Maybe I should ask Spike to talk to me about Dawn. Last summer seems to really have brought them together. Sometimes-dead sisters who are distracted by saving the world have a lot of catching up to do. Buffy leaned back into Spike's arm, which had somehow found its way about her waist. It seemed as though the curve of his arm was beginning to feel like a place she belonged, a place where she could put aside duty for a while and simply be. She leaned her head back against his shoulder and looked up the dark expanse of the Tree.

The sky blinked.

Buffy started forward out of Spike's embrace, looking up at the heavens. Sheet lightning surged around the peak of the Tree and arced along its upper branches, high in the obscured sky. Sudden intuition drove her forward across the ground and into Willow and Tara, sending them sprawling. Moments later, a blistering bolt of lightning blasted the ground where they had been standing; obliterating all traces of the mystical pattern they had begun.

They struggled to their feet, their skins tingling with the residual electricity in the air. "We're okay. Only slightly cooked," Buffy said, in response to the urgent inquiries of the others. "But it looks like this approach is definitely out."

Above them the dark clouds began to swirl widdershins about the Tree. Dust devils skirled about their feet. For a moment the air was as still as if a god were holding his breath. A trembling began in the air, troubling the higher branches first, but sweeping inexorably lower.

"Everyone take cover!" Buffy shouted, as the hot breath of wind gusted down the flanks of the Tree and over them where they stood. It screamed like a lost soul, tearing at their clothes and hair and churning about their mouths until they could hardly breathe. They struggled to make their way into the lee of the mighty roots surrounding them.

The wind roared around them, making it impossible to keep to their feet. Before them on the stark plain that bounded the Tree, thousands of forms sprang up from the earth as though the land there had been sown with serpent's teeth.

"I have to try the linking spell!" she cried, against the force of the wind that pinned them. "There's no way we can fight this individually; he'll just keep picking us off one by one. I have to take the fight to him. It's our last chance. It's our only chance."

Spike folded her hands into his own and leaned forward until his mouth was at her ear so he could be heard over the howl of the wind. "Be careful, love."

"Careful? When we're about to be attacked by vastly superior forces and I'm heading off to assault the home turf of a demon that's been around since almost the beginning of time? Not gonna happen," she replied the same way, then looked up the Tree to where the Nightmare Master awaited her. When her eyes returned to his, he felt that something had changed between them forever. "And where were you with that advice before I fell-" She took his face in both her hands, kissed him as though it might be the last time, then was gone.

Buffy crawled out from the meagre shelter of the roots and somehow managed to get to her feet in the clearing.
"--------!" she shouted, and the world seemed to falter for a moment on its axis.

They reeled as the wind abruptly died. In the sudden silence that followed, the darkness all around them grew even more oppressive, except that where Buffy was standing she was all at once limned in gold. One by one, her companions collapsed to the uneven ground as she drew their life force into herself.

Willow came into her a glowing coal of power. She could see where the fire was obscured in places with dark twisted strands. Without knowing how she did so, Buffy untangled Willow's essence from the darkness and then gently blew it to a glorious blaze, adding it to her own power.

Tara poured into her like warm honey, kind and strong and loving, and Buffy nearly wept at the acceptance and wisdom that she found there. Xander was a wall of strong stones, occasionally battered, but weathering the fiercest of storms. She made a fortress of his strength within her.

Spike was arctic ice, but quicksilver bright. He brought strength and speed, love, irreverence and laughter that sparkled and fizzed within her, making her laugh with wild joy. The darkness that coursed through him only served to strengthen her.

Then at last there was Dawn. Dawn was a mirror, returning to Buffy her own self, doubled. Blood of the Slayer, given life, form and breath. But then without warning, there was something else between them - something ancient and wild - and the door between the worlds blew wide. //You have called, Slayer, and I will answer you.//

Buffy swayed in place, caught up in a net of untamed power. "C-called? Called what?" she stammered.

//Earth.// What is a man, that thou art mindful of him? Naught but dust, and to dust shall he return.

//Air.// Spirit of creation residing in flesh. Neither Being nor Non-being, neither air nor earth nor space. What was enclosed? Where? Under whose protection? Neither death nor immortality, day nor night - but ONE breathed by itself with no wind.

//Fire.// And sparks were struck from Her dancing feet so that She shone forth as the Sun, and the stars were caught in Her hair. Comets raced about Her, and the element Fire was born.

//Water.// Water shivered, Time trembled. Water and Time crushed loneliness between them, loneliness fled at the word Create. Eternity echoed in her voice, her voice singed the Gander's wings: 'Create!'

//Living. Dead. Human... and Divine. The Balance will serve you, though this is not yet your appointed hour.//

The light surrounding Buffy grew intolerably bright. Dawn became radiance and heat that baked her to her very bones and set her blood to boil within her. She stood transfixed, speared through with more power than she could contain, and she felt her body distort, pulled like taffy, stretching and warping into some new, vast form. Her scream was lost in the sound of roaring winds.

Spike managed to raise his head from the ground where he had fallen. The power streaming from Dawn towards Buffy washed over her and poured out behind her into vast golden wings of light. He squinted into the now near-blinding radiance, but could only make out two indistinct shapes. Dawn's voice - now richer and more musical than he thought a human voice could be, a vast, chiming sound - echoed in the space between the roots of the Tree.

//You are brave in your chosen path and you are dearly loved. There are no mistakes along your way - only opportunities to make a difference.//

//You come into the world through love yet see suffering and pain. 'Why?' you ask, do you have to live like this? And we join you in questioning this and we answer with love, 'You don't.' You were never asked to suffer, dear one. You need suffer no longer.//

//There is no force in the Universe more powerful than the love possessed in your body, mind, and soul. Use this power of love to break the chains that bind. Call on the Sword of Truth and Love to cut through any chains.//

//And then forget.//

Gale force winds buffeted them once again, as from a pair of mighty wings beating. A star rose into the blackness, trailing fire and smoke. He followed its path until it climbed so high it was lost to his sight.

Dawn walked out of the light, seemingly herself again, and came over to where he lay. "Never was seen such an angel - eyes of heavenly blue, features that shamed Apollo, hair of a golden hue..." She smiled as she looked down at him. "Creature of darkness - your struggle has not gone unwitnessed. There can be a place for you, if you wish it.

"For what you have done before this, it is your penance to remember more than the others," she said gently, "because there must always be someone to watch over the Defender. But even you can't bear to know everything yet that must be. So, Observator insopitus - rest now. Your battle is coming - but it is not today."

Spike felt leaden slumber steal into all his limbs and weigh down his thoughts. "Defensor hominem..." he murmured, in the moment before he lost consciousness.

"Yes." The sound of a smile in Dawn's voice followed him into blackness.

Awakenings

Spike was the first to regain consciousness but lay still on the bed until he was sure of his surroundings. If nothing else, he decided, the sudden flare of renewed pain in his burned hand assured him that this was the real world at last. His head still spun with broken images from the final confrontation that had driven the Nightmare Master back into the world's unconscious and away from Buffy at last.

He leaned up on his elbows and surveyed the room. Tara, Dawn, Willow and Xander lay sprawled, still unconscious, in the armchairs they must have brought in. Their bodies all bore the same arcane markings as his. They had pulled the bed into the centre of the room to make space for them all around.

A low moan made him turn his head; Buffy was beginning to wake. He rolled to his side beside her, slipping one arm about her waist. "Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," he said, leaning over to kiss her as she began to stir.

"Mmm..." she murmured against his lips. One of her hands came up to his cheek. Her eyes fluttered open gradually.

"Spike?" she asked, confused. Then as her awareness returned she realized where they were and what he was doing... and what his hands were doing. She yelled "Spike!" and slammed the heel of her hand into his solar plexus, sending him off the bed and sprawling to the floor.

"The hell?!" he shouted, scrambling to his feet. "What's going on?"

"That's what I should be asking you," she retorted. "There was this demon in the cemetery - and then you're in bed with me?" Buffy noticed the others around them beginning to revive. "What have you done to them?"

The accusation stung. "I haven't done a bloody thing to them. We've all been busy saving you from the Nightmare Master," he insisted. "You were attacked in the cemetery and trapped in a repeating set of nightmares. I brought you home and Tara sent me into your dreams after you. When I couldn't get you out by myself, the rest of them came after both of us."

"That's got to be the lamest story I've ever heard, even considering your usual standards," she said mockingly. She threw back the covers, but quickly pulled them over herself again when she realized she wore nothing but her tank top and underwear. "First that stupid plan with the demon eggs, and now this. What kind of scam is this, anyway?"

It's not a-" he began in frustration. "Don't you remember? How we fought your nightmares - and mine? You told me-"

"Did it work?" mumbled Dawn, interrupting him. "Are we back?" She saw Buffy sitting up in bed and moved quickly to her sister's side, capturing her in a fierce hug then settling beside her on the bed as though afraid Buffy would disappear any minute.

"The last thing I remember is that goopy demon," Buffy said. "Now you tell me I've been asleep and dreaming?" A dark image trembled at the edge of her awareness, then slipped away.

"Buffy," said Tara, sitting up carefully in her chair. "Spike brought you to us three days ago - at least I think it was only three days now. You were trapped in nightmares, and we did send him in after you, and then followed ourselves. I just don't remember what happened after that. Clearly we were successful."

"Xander, Willow," Spike pleaded, seeing them leaning forward and rubbing their eyes. "Tell Buffy what happened when we were fighting the Nightmare Master."

Willow shook her head. "I think there was something... were there frogs?" she asked apologetically. Xander had even less to offer, spreading his hands and shrugging his shoulders.

Spike turned to Dawn, knowing she'd not lie to him, but her eyes betrayed the same blankness and confusion that was affecting the others. "I'm sorry, Spike," she said. "But I only get these fragments - just like what always happens when I wake up from dreams."

"It seems rather convenient that you're the only one who can remember anything," Buffy pointed out.

"You as much as told me you loved me," he said. "Do you really think I would forget that?"

"Now I know at least one of us was dreaming," she replied caustically. "How long did it take you to plan this, once I told you it was over between us? I can't believe you actually thought I'd fall for it - telling me you had saved me from some fate worse than death just so I might consider seeing you again? You should have at least made sure someone would be able to back up your story."

Nothing had ever hurt as much as her words did, twisting in his heart. Not losing Dru. Not when she had damned near killed him, years ago. Not even when he had thought she was dead and gone. He did the only thing he could think of to ease the pain; he struck back. "Don't flatter yourself by exaggerating the effects of your charms, Goldilocks. You weren't ever that good. It's no wonder soldierboy needed something - and then someone else." He snatched up his tee shirt and clawed it over his head, jammed his boots on his bare feet, and turned for the door.

"Get out of my bedroom and out of my house and get the hell out of my life!" she shrieked, grabbing up the jewellery box from her beside table and flinging it, striking him between the shoulder blades and making him stagger. Rings and necklaces showered to the floor. She followed it up with a water glass that shattered against the door. His one hand left bloody streaks as he hurriedly pulled it shut behind him. "If I ever catch you anywhere near any of my friends again, I'll finish you off like I should have done years ago!" she yelled through the door.

"How could you!?" Dawn shouted, pushing back violently from where she sat next to Buffy on the bed. "I hate you!" She got up and dashed to the door, throwing it open and going after him. "Spike, wait!" she yelled, chasing him down the stairs.

Buffy drew her knees to her chest and dropped her face into her hands to hide her tears. Tara and Willow moved to either side of her on the bed and put their arms around her. Xander just looked uncomfortable.

"Shhh, sweetie," said Tara comfortingly. "Everything will be all right. We're all back together safely and that's all that really matters."

Buffy swiped at her tears angrily. "I can't believe he'd have the nerve to pull a stunt like this; getting someone to put a spell on me just so he could play the hero."

"I don't know," Willow said uncertainly. "He seemed to be really upset when he brought you in that night . . ."

"It's all an act," Buffy insisted. "Don't you see? It has to be. He's fooled everyone."

"It would explain a lot," Xander added, though his expression was doubtful. "Including why he never mentioned it was over between you two."

"I suppose so," Willow allowed, "It's only that-" she stopped, seeing Tara shake her head over Buffy's hunched form. "But like Tara said; the important thing is that we're all safe now," she continued.

"Everything's back to normal all right," Buffy said. "My life sucks and Dawn hates me again."

***********

Dawn caught him at the front steps. "Spike, wait!"

"Why? Buffy suddenly have a change of heart and beg me to return?" Dawn's expression couldn't conceal the true situation. "Thought not."

Spike surveyed the sky. No matter the day, it was at least an hour until sunrise. He turned to face Dawn with a sigh. "Sure, I helped her change the course of a few nightmares, but it wasn't anything she couldn't have done on her own, once she was aware she was dreaming. Then I was sucked into nightmares of my own, nightmares in which I didn't know her and nearly killed her. I could, you know - the chip won't stop me from hurting her now. And what if I can't stop myself? I'm just a bloody killer under it all."

Dawn said nothing. She'd always found Spike more fascinating than frightening, but finding out that something about Buffy had changed enough to allow him to attack her shook the foundations of her world. She shivered, but Spike went on, unheeding.

"When you lot showed up, what happens to me? I get possessed and used to attack you. Then when we ran into Jo- a group of humans, I can't do a thing, because this blasted chip can't tell the difference between them and real people." He drew a much-battered package of cigarettes from his pocket, fished through it until he found one that was relatively whole, and lit it.

"I'll love her until I'm dust, Bit, but she'll never love me - not outside of dreams, at any rate." He sighed smoke. "Maybe I should take this for what it is - an opportunity to break away out of a relationship that's every kind of wrong."

"It's not wrong!" Dawn insisted. "I think you guys are perfect for each other. Buffy's just too thick-headed to figure it out on her own."

He snorted. "That so, Bit? Then why can't she remember what she said to me in our dreams?" Why can I? This is hell and damnation here on earth, remembering how she talked to me, touched me - like I was someone she wanted.

"Take care of her for me, Dawn," he said, stepping off the stairs. "Since she won't let me do it."

She watched him walk away in the pre-dawn light, trailing a stream of smoke, until he turned the corner and was lost to her sight.

Chapter 31: